Written by Tanya Terry
Featured photo courtesy of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
In celebration of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation reaching a 100 years of giving milestone, the Foundation launched a strategic plan for its next 10 years. The plan calls for $2 billion dollars in planned grantmaking within the 2026 – 2035 decade.
Ridgway White, president and CEO of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, told the Courier at the Mott Foundation Building, where a roundtable discussion was recently held, that 60% of the planned grantmaking is focused in Flint.
Up to $370 million has been allocated to support education in Flint, from early childhood through postsecondary education.
“Of that $100 million dollars will focus on K-12 Flint school facilities,” stated White.
Up to $100 million will go towards reducing childhood poverty in Flint.
White shared that may involve an extension of Rx Kids, or other similiar programs.
Through Rx Kids, expecting mothers receive $1,500 during pregnancy, and infants receive $500 a month for for between 6 – 12 months.
White also shared that the Mott Foundation hopes to see a national program policy, possibly adopted by the U.S. government, focused on One Water. The One Water approach manages all water in an integrated and inclusive way, with the aim of providing affordable water access for everyone. White pointed out that Flint residents are currently paying some of the highest rates in the country for a city Flint’s size.
The five grant-making areas within tthe plan are education, housing and blight elimination, economic development, community vitality and child poverty solutions.
Kimberly Roberson, program director for the Flint Area Grantmaking Team at the Charles Stewart Mott stated: “We worked really hard to make sure the focus of this plan is in response to the things we have consistently heard from Flint residents over the years. We’ve done the Focus on Flint Conversations, and we do an annual Quality of Life Survey and have a lot of conversations with Flint residents. We’ve heard over and over that really the intersection of housing, and neighborhoods and public safety is their top priority…”
Roberson said t’s not enough to just remove the blight; you also have to rebuild the housing that people want. So, she said, that is part of the C.S. Mott focus.
“We’re aiming to increase home ownership” she added. “So, there may be some home ownership assistance plans and ways to get people into houses that they plan to stay in, and that they can also build equity in.”
Roberson also shared that the Foundation is interested supporting code enforcement and active inspection in order to improve the safety of rental units in Flint.
Roberson explained that comunity vitality supports basic needs and services, youth sports programs and places for residents to come together (such as community centers, parks and play spaces).
According to Roberson, the Foundation prioritizes bringing businesses in and supporting those who are able to employ Flint residents. She also said the Foundation takes a regional approach to economic development, keeping in mind the belief that everybody benefits from large employers who come in and can employ people. Additionally, she said that although the Foundation has always focused a fair amount of is resources on the downtown area, the focus is and will continue to not be on one area exclusively.
Benita Melton, director of the Mott Foundation’s Youth Engagement program, shared that the three initiatives her department would be working on in the next decade would be youth entrepreneurship, afterschool and children’s savings accounts. She said these strategies had all proven effective to help young people stay in school, learn and succeed.
Sam Passmore, director of the Foundation’s Environment team, said the budget for the Environment program is $2 million a year, with half being for the One Water Initiative.
Neal Hegarty, the Mott Foundation’s vice president of Programs, said he is pleased the Foundation is, in some ways, increasing its priority for Flint and the quality of life in the city, as a global grantmaker.
White said: “We’ve been supporting communities across the globe. Our earliest grants were in the 1930s, really on climate change. Since the fall of apartheid, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the USSR, we’ve been working internationally. One of the things we’re maintaining is our focus on South Africa, and there we work on access to justice work and community philanthropy. So, it’s really taking what we’ve learned here, especially on community philanthrophy and community foundations, and taking community foundations and supporting people and their ability to support their own community. I think that partnership is a core belief of C.S.’s-if you help a person to become successful, then they can help others.”
